Anybody have a tiltrotator?
YouTube - engconDigPro SLC material placement I'm sure there are others out there besides this brand... Just an example.
Do you like it?
Does it make you more money?
Does it save labor cost / speed up production?
I think it would be really great to have one of these attachments. But, as AtlasRob has clearly demonstrated in this quote, the things are extremely expensive....
I'm sure the cost will mitigate in time with competition and market growth, however, they are rather complex and will probably always be somewhat expensive.
From my web surfing, I see tiltrotators have really become a necessity to compete in some European markets. What I have seen also indicates that they would have their place with anyone working on a restrictive utility job or urban site. Looks awesome when working around existing utilities!
I know things work different in Europe than here in the U.S. I don't know much about their labor laws. I have gathered from people with experience in other industries there that it is a little more regulated or stringent. That may justify the cost of such a flexible and expensive attachment, I don't know. :beatsme
I can't speak for AtlasRob but, I recall him mentioning it is hard to get customers in his market to pay extra for more flexible attachments in the plant hire business. I feel safe in assuming the same would be even more true here in the U.S. In my opinion, we tend to have more room to work and the jobs tend to be larger in size and scope.
What I do see is that contracts (at least in federal highway maintenance work) are being written with ever shorter work windows and larger penalties for not getting off the road in time. Not to mention the A + B bids that I am seeing more of where your hard bid has a time element that attaches bonus / penalty factors to the contract based on the number of days you say it will take to complete the work. Lettings are so eratic now that a contractor must be very flexible as to the type of work he does if he wants to have work to bid on at all. For example, Georgia has only four or five jobs in this month's D.O.T. letting (normally many more than that). Kentucky canceled one of its lettings this year.
Things are changing fast for the smaller contractors. Instead of focusing on only grading/pipe a contractor may by necessity have to look at demo., landscaping or clearing to stay in business this quarter. I can see a need for the flexiblilty a tiltrotator could bring a smaller company that doesn't have miles of road to build or many thousands of feet of pipe to lay every day. Today he may be called upon to replace lead water service pipes in a city street and tomorrow he may have to do emergency storm debris removal.... I know everyone is already doing this to some extent. What is the cost, though? Do you make up for it with more labor? Does it make sense to have to rent different equipment for every job? Do you really want to own that many diversified pieces of equipment? If not, how do you build equity? How do you train and retrain all of that extra labor every day without losing time and money to the learning curves? Can you even find help capable of dealing with the daily changes without sacraficing safety?
ointhead
Sorry to rant/ramble on so over an equipment attachment.
I just have a ton of respect for you folks out there that are getting it done everyday. I don't know how you're making any money when things are changing so fast all around you. My hat's off to all of you! :notworthy You deserve the best tools to work with every day. :bash
